


You've Lost Protectors Before, Haven't You?

by greenaway_lewis



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, POV Second Person, Suicidal Thoughts, briefly nothing big its mentioned like once i think, mentions blood, mentions gun shot wounds, spoilers through mid season 12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:29:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27666131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenaway_lewis/pseuds/greenaway_lewis
Summary: "Parents are supposed to love you unconditionally from the day you are born until the day you die. The chemicals your body releases are supposed to ensure this. Perhaps something went wrong because your father does not love you. If he loved you he would stay, he is not staying and you don’t know anymore if it’s because of who you are, because your mother is sick or some other reason that you were not smart enough to figure out and fix. What good is your intelligence if you can’t keep your family together. You are out of options now, there was never really a chance of swaying him anyway. You watch as your guardian decides you aren’t worth guarding."~~~Or, a look of people who've left spencer reid
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	You've Lost Protectors Before, Haven't You?

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! please read the tags for possible triggers, nothing too bad here but better safe than sorry. Fic is based on the line "You've lost protectors before haven't you" from 11x21  
> Hope you enjoy!

You’re standing in a women’s correctional facility in front of a woman who does not want to be corrected trying to coax information out of her to save two boys whom she does not want to be saved. Your emotions are high today, as they have been ever since Morgan left. In times when you do not feel anything, you beg and plead to feel again, feel anything because it’s terrifying to feel so empty inside, that seeing all the things that you see do not affect you. JJ gets emotional during cases with kids, well they all do. You used to, but now you don’t get emotional all that often. Of course, when you do it’s harrowing. It’s too much. Your emotions are like a messed up lake. It is dry most of the year, those who depend on it pray for water for they need it to survive. And then the dam breaks loose and it rains for days and days and days. At first, they rejoiced. They have rain now! But then it didn’t stop and there was flooding and everything was ruined, and they longed for the dry lake once more. You wish you could go back to the numbness but for now, you will ache.

The walls are a muted gray-brown. Lifeless, dull. You think you would not like prison. That it would change you forever in a way you would not like. The woman looks into your eyes, and just like your poor mother who is starting to fade, she seems to know everything about you. She can sense the sadness in you. 

“You’ve lost protectors before haven’t you?”

~~~

You are six years old when you notice your mother does not seem like the mothers you read about in your stories. She does not always remember who you are, she does not make you sandwiches, nor does she ask how your day was or tuck you in at night. The days that your mother remembers your identity are the days you rejoice. She does not take you to church but if you did you would pray every night just for days like these. Days where she reads to you old literature that you shouldn’t be able to understand at your age but you have never been like kids your age. Those days she is kind, and sweet to you. You do not understand yet why some days she is just like the moms in your books and why other days she is the villain. You know she shouldn’t do the things that she does but even if you don’t know why you know that she is not well. Sometimes she confuses you for a government agent. You’ve read the requirements to work as a field agent for the United States government and you know you would never qualify, especially with your six-year-old body. How does your mother not see the difference between you and an adult who is allowed to carry a weapon. You wonder why she hates the government. After all, your teachers tell you there is no better government than ours, why would the agents be bad people. They arrest people who’ve committed a crime. Has your mother committed a crime? Surely she hasn’t, at least not intentionally. When she asks you about your bruises she does not seem to remember that she was the cause of them so that can’t be a crime. Some days, your mother is neither the loving caretaker nor is she your villain. She is plain and empty much like your cupboards. She does not leave the room and she does not care about you. On those days you miss your mother.

~~~

At ten, your father decides that he does not want to be a part of this family. He was never quite there to begin with though, he worked late and left early. His response when you asked him was that he needed to make money to support you. You don’t tell him that you’d like him to be here to support you. You watch as he packs a suitcase with his belongings, oh how you wish to belong, and says that he won’t be around anymore. Your mother is distraught, she does not think she is unwell, she does not understand why your father has to go. A part of you wishes he would take you with him because on Diana’s bad days when she hurts you, you do not feel safe in this house. It is simply a house to you, never a home. She is your protector but sometimes you feel unsafe around her. You beg him to stay because you know that he will not take you with him. You are not the son he wishes he had. He wants a son who enjoys sports instead of chess and thinks about superheroes not philosophy. Statistics are your strong suit and you hope they will help you be strong now. William does not like your statistics, granted he never liked you very much. Parents are supposed to love you unconditionally from the day you are born until the day you die. The chemicals your body releases are supposed to ensure this. Perhaps something went wrong because your father does not love you. If he loved you he would stay, he is not staying and you don’t know anymore if it’s because of who you are, because your mother is sick or some other reason that you were not smart enough to figure out and fix. What good is your intelligence if you can’t keep your family together. You are out of options now, there was never really a chance of swaying him anyway. You watch as your guardian decides you aren’t worth guarding. 

~~~

High school is rough when you’re 12 and everyone hates you. You hope college will be better. It is and it isn’t. It is somehow lonelier to be on a big campus when you are so small. So many people never quite your friends. However, much to your surprise, you did find someone like you. Which is something you never thought you’d be able to say. Ethan is just like you in the sense that he is much too smart for his age, not as smart as you as you like to remind him, he understands you and well, you’ve never met another gay person before. Although unlike you, Ethan likes big crowds. The thrill of an audience and the anonymity that comes from being one of a thousand in a room. You are friends before you are more. More is a broad term, you like labels. They are precise, and they are safe, and they make things make sense. Ethan on the other hand is a ‘free spirit’ he does not want to put you in a box and you would do anything for his affection. You spend a decade doing the thing you love most in the world, learning. You pile on degree after degree, mostly for you but a small part of you does it to stick it to your deadbeat dad. Maybe he’ll regret the day he leaves a ten-year-old with an unmedicated paranoid schizophrenic. One day you meet a man from the fbi. He tells you about the monsters of the world and how you can do great things, and that you should do them with him. You love what he tells you, you never were quite sure about how people work but now you might get the answers you’ve always wanted. If you can look into the minds of men, maybe one day you'll understand your own mind. Ethan says he’ll join you and you’re so excited to continue your journey with the one person who always treated you like a person. You make it to the academy, bursting with excitement. You had different classes today and you can’t wait to share with him. When you return to your room you see a note on the bed, a note that would crush you more than you think paper should have the right to. He is just like your father, he decided you were not worth the effort and left with a note to pursue other passions. You would grieve him but you do not have the time. Words always were the greatest weapon. 

~~~ 

Elle. She’s as strong as she is beautiful. She’s like the sister you would have loved if you had wanted a sibling growing up. She is understanding in a way that Ethan never was and your mother never could be. Elle is one of the first people to use sarcasm in a way that wasn't cruel to you. Helps you break the pattern that you only deserve cruelness from your peers. She does not need anything for you, she does not even ask. She does not treat you like the child that you might be and you love her for that. The day she gets shot is the day you think you know true heartbreak. You do not know whether or not she will survive. But she does. Well, her body survived. Her mind is a little broken now but that’s nothing you can’t fix. You’ve always been a great problem solver. Except this time, the problem does not want to be fixed.

“You can’t save me, Reid, you can’t solve me. I’m not one of your math problems. Go” 

And you do. You regret it, but she was always so kind to you that you think it would almost be a crime to not listen to her wishes. And then she commits a crime. A real one, a big one. They ruled it self-defense, although some part of you knows that she was so angry after Garner. You know somewhere deep in your heart that your beloved friend is now a murderer. You never see her again and you wonder how she is. You think she was like a star, shined so bright, lit the path for you but then exploded from the pressure. This does not stop you from looking at the sky.

~~

When you were 14 a man came up to you and asked you if you’d like to hunt the monsters of humanity. He tells you all about the science behind what makes mankind so evil yet so kind. You’ve never been able to understand your peers so you jump at the chance to maybe, just maybe understand someone. It does not matter to you that they are not people whose heads are full of fond things. Jason Gideon is his name. Or well, was his name. After you’ve finished gathering your degrees for now, you follow him into the behavioral science unit of the fbi. Thanks to him, you met your family. Also thanks to him, you don’t quite sleep at night. But well, if that’s the price you pay for companionship you better call yourself an investor. The two of you play chess, it’s an interesting feeling to no longer be the smartest person in the room. He beats you in chess unlike anyone else you’ve ever played. It’s a rush to lose to him, you’ve missed feeling human, sometimes it feels as though you float above everyone because they do not understand you and the feeling is mutual. One day you though, someone decided to kidnap you. Tobias Hankel calls you a sinner, well Raphael and Charles Hankel call you a sinner. Tobias gives you the gift of pure bliss. You are floating again but this time you are not afraid of falling, the clouds are you are neighbors which completes a dream of yours. You feel among the stars and you think of Elle. Of course the high does come down and you are back to being beaten and called a sinner and called weak. You aren’t weak, or maybe you are but your head is still clouding from the drugs. You’ve never felt disconnected from your brain, it’s always on, on, on, never an off switch until now. Interesting. Eventually, the team finds you, or at least a version of you. You wonder if a part of you died when you died never to return. You’ve killed a man before but this one feels different, he was more multifaceted than most and you feel like the sinner he called you when you killed the part of him who only wanted to help. You are broken now and Gideon can tell. He’d of course never tell you that. He’s like a silent watcher, a god type perhaps, he sees all and sometimes he makes comments that you never quite understand but you thank him for trying. As you return again and again to the sweet, sweet poison you can tell that it hurts Gideon to see you struggle almost as much as you ache every day. One day he’s had enough trauma and heartache, and he leaves for good. He writes you a letter just like your father did and although you never thought they were similar you think now that maybe it’s a flaw you bring out in men. You wish he would’ve said goodbye in person but that was never his style. Your team is slightly angry with you because of this. You don’t know how to tell them that although it isn’t your fault that he didn’t say goodbye he might be why he would have to say it in the first place. You think about him every time you see a bird and you wonder if he still thinks about you or the games of chess you played. Years later when you walk through his house, which is now his crime scene and you see his chessboard you feel both empty and complete. You think you are like a bowl with tiny holes never to be filled, some might pour water in you and eventually, you can hold most of it but it rushes out eventually. It leaves you empty with the memories of what it was like to not be. 

~~~

You’ve always been a fan of languages and now you’ve found someone to speak them with. Emily Prentiss, a woman who is as mysterious as she is sharp. She teaches you how to pronounce the words that you’ve only read in books, she tells you your accent is horrendous but you know that it will not get better. Your mouth is not made to create melodies. Words are just words for you, but you think you could listen to her speak for hours. You snap at her when she first arrives, you feel terrible about it but in your defense, you were high out of your mind every day. 

You never said it was a good defense.

She forgives you for reasons you do not know yet. Later you find out that you are not the only boy with issues of dependency on artificial feelings in her life. You are close with her in a similar way you were with Elle. They both feel like older sisters to you but Emily is the sister that would smoke pot in your room and complain and Elle is the sister that brings you to parties you were not invited to. Both you love, one is here. 

She takes a beating for you, she says she would do it again for you. You think you don’t deserve her kindness, but she gives it to you anyways. You will always feel a tiny bit bad about that but it is not the most of your worries. The two of you go through traumas like most people go through phones and you think it builds trust, makes your relationship stronger.

You guess you were wrong.

You tell her about your headaches, she does not tell you about Ian Doyle. Later, you won’t tell her about smuggling drugs from Mexico. Both have disastrous consequences. She goes rogue like you always suspected she could. And then she dies and you wonder what the point of being alive is if she is not there to watch Russian movies with you or complain about Morgan. You tell this to JJ, and she looks concerned in more ways than one but you are too full with grief to examine her right now. Later, you wish you would have but for now you sob into her lap wishing your mother was present enough to allow you to burden her with her grief. 

And then, she comes back?

That can’t be right, you buried her. People don’t come back once they're buried six feet under, you know this. You think maybe this is it. You’re finally breaking, you love your mother but you’re afraid of becoming her. And then she speaks, and you know no ghost could ever sound as sweet as her voice. She’s home. 

You never truly feel like she’s here to stay, you think she might slip away any second now. It’s too good to be true but for now you’ll bask in her glow because she always was simultaneously the brightest and darkest person in the room. You get to have your Russian cinema night after all. It’s everything you could have wished for, have wished for. 

A bomb goes off in a bank and JJ decides that it’s time to marry the father of her child. The wedding is beautiful, Rossi knows how to throw a wedding, and well, after three of his own you’d hope so. There’s a thin layer of melancholia that echos off of her. She’s leaving again, but at least this time she’s full of life. She’s got ghosts, sure but at least she’s six feet above the earth instead of under it. 

~~~

You miss Emily, you’d feel guilty if you didn’t after everything you’ve been through. But in through the doors of the bullpen is another familiar figure. Alex Blake, you knew her back when your biggest worries were term papers and your mother's health. You think she carries sorrow within her now but you suppose that mirrors your own burdens. Unlike Elle and Emily, she is not your sister, she feels almost like your mother. You berate yourself for thinking like that for you already have a mother, you do not need a surrogate for something you already have. Sometimes though, it feels nice to be worried about, to not be the one worrying. For two years she is here and she is smart in the same way you are. You’ve found a fellow academic to bond over literature and crossword puzzles. She helps you grieve the loss of your almost-maybe-but not quite-girlfriend. You don’t know the end that would have resulted if she was not there to coax food into your stomach which felt as though it’s been stabbed. 

Then, then you get shot in the neck and everything falls apart. She is not the first person to cover their hands in your blood but this will be the last time she has blood on hers. You know it from the second she calls out another boy's name while looking right at you. Briefly, you wondered about your Ethan but you knew that she did not know about him. As she walks you home you have an inkling that this is it. Yet again another parental figure, _not your paren_ t will decide that you cause too much heartache and will leave you alone with yours. She tells you about her son, who much like you died too soon. You’re alive but you haven’t felt like it in decades, she leaves sadly. She also leaves her badge with you, along with a feeling of guilt you don’t know why you have. You’ve always been a man of words but this action speaks louder than the gunshot that almost killed you today.

~~~~

If Elle and Emily were your sisters and Alex was your mother, then you think Morgan would be your brother. After a bit, you stopped flinching when he moved too quickly towards you, he looked too similar to the boys who strung you up on a goalpost and left you to freeze, he’s the only one you’ve told about that. You became close. You’re close in the way that only people who’ve seen more violence than should be allowed, experienced more of the world's horrors than most and shared deepest secrets are. It’s no secret he’s assigned himself your protector. He’s strong in ways you are not, and he feels as though it’s his duty to protect you from the tragedy of the career you chose at an age you shouldn’t have been allowed to choose at. He’s been there for most of your downfalls. Hankle, anthrax, bullet, Prentiss, Maeve, bullet, your mother forgetting her only son. Growing up you never experienced a friendship where words and jokes were shared as easy as the air between you. You’ve grown under his wing, you can shoot now, you can joke most of the time and you feel loved by someone who has no obligation to love you. For all the times you’ve been kidnapped you never once thought it too could happen to him.

And then it did. Kidnapped by men who want him to suffer before he dies. You know he is strong but you also know all about the mind and body and just how much it can take. The air is tense while you wait for any answers to save the man who has never failed to save you from your demons. You find him, you find him alive which is the best you wished for. His body heals although you’re not quite sure if his mind does, he did always feel like he needed to protect your mind rather than release his troubles to you. Savannah is pregnant and Morgan’s going to be the father he deserves to be. All is right with your world until it isn’t.

Savannah has been shot and now you are not sure if Morgan can recover from this. You try your best, but soothing people has never been your strength. Once again a member of your team is being forced to play Russian roulette. _"chose" "no" "chose one to die_ " You hope the odds are in your favor but Vegas taught you never to bet on things you don’t think you will win. He does win though, in more ways than one. 

You don’t know if you lost though. You lost him but you still have him. He names his son after you, it’s an honor to be right next to his father's name whom he praises. He tells you that he loves you and you know that this is goodbye. 

It’s different this time, you know why he’s leaving, not leaving, just a phone call away he says, and he said goodbye. But you know somewhere in your soul that nothing will ever be the same. Perhaps you’ll see him on holidays and a spare weekend here or there, but he will be free of the monsters and you will be drowning in them. 

~~~

To complete your misfit family there’s Aaron Hotchner. Head of the family, head of the team. He bears the weight of the world on his shoulders. He is like your father in many ways. He knows you are young, but he never underestimates you, he thinks you are capable at your job when that opinion is scarce. No one else would trust the agent that just that morning failed their firearms test to make a shot after being beaten and having their hands zip-tied together. Of course, just like you told him after the debacle that was the Chester Hardwick interview, you do your best work under extreme terror. Sometimes though, he had too much confidence in you, namely the belief that you would need no support to overcome an opioid addiction. Perhaps he was right, you didn’t need them after all but boy, would it have been nice to have a shoulder to cry on instead of your pillow. After Haley, you would’ve thought he would leave. Turns out, everyone on this team is addicted to the thrill of the case and the pleasure of saving lives. Consequences be damned. In the end though, two serial killers targeting his son was just one too many and just like that, the great Aaron Hotchner was gone. No goodbye, not even a letter. You’d grown accustomed to at least a feeble goodbye that this left you high and dry, _oh how you wish you were high._ You can’t be mad at a father for wanting to protect and love his son, you just wish that you meant enough for a goodbye. 

~~~ 

You have lost protectors before, perhaps it’s time you learn how to protect yourself. Relying on others always did make you feel as though you were weak, fragile, breakable. Maybe you’ll go back to the time when you were all you needed to survive. You and the stars of the ones you’ve loved that never was quite strong enough to make them stay. Love is not the catch-all, no one can protect you from your heart, it is yours to break and yours to mend alone. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Concider leaving a comment if you'd like, thanks for reading!! Find me on tumblr @greenaway-lewis. :) have a lovely day


End file.
